Alice Springs, a town on the edge of its wits
The besieged residents of Alice Springs saw something this week they had rarely seen in recent years: police in control of the town. And they immediately smelled a rat.
The besieged residents of Alice Springs saw something this week they had rarely seen in recent years: police in control of the town. And they immediately smelled a rat.
Highway patrol cars pulled over vehicles, mounted police were brought in from Darwin and caged police trucks cruised the main strip in force.
“Someone’s here in town; they’ve cleaned the joint up,” one local remarked, as the cavalcade drove past.
He was right: the Northern Territory police commissioner and police minister had flown in.
The residents of this blighted town have good reason to be cynical.
Police launched a similar blitz only last month, but very soon life had returned to what now passes for normal in Alice Springs.
Daylight home invasions, car theft, vandalism and the constant threat of physical violence have made the CBD a no-go zone, plagued by out-of-control youths, often drunk.
The figures tell the story: a 25-50 per cent surge in assaults, domestic violence, home invasions and commercial break-ins in the past year alone. At least 300 people arrested in the town of 25,000 in the past seven weeks. Many of the perpetrators are Indigenous; so are many of the victims.
Todd Mall, once a thriving hub of Indigenous art galleries, restaurants, pubs and cafes is now a collection of dozens of boarded-up and shuttered shops.
Before Covid the town was heaving with backpackers; some businesses would have five to 10 backpackers a day looking for a job. Now, it is rare to see a single tourist.
Homes are being raided by youths armed with edged weapons including machetes, hunting knives, axes, tomahawks and sharp “number seven” boomerangs.
Locals – Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike – point to young men and women who have come to the town from “out bush”, fuelled by alcohol, as the cause of much of the recent trouble.
At 2pm, a steady stream of customers start entering the dozen or so bottle shops scattered around town. Sitting on stools at the entrance of one of the more popular stores in the heart of the town are two police officers, one sipping from a can of Coca-Cola.
Entering the store, one officer inconspicuously turns on his bodyworn video camera before asking The Weekend Australian: “Are you buying any alcohol for anyone?” Where will you be drinking? Who are you with? Where are you staying?” before we’re granted permission to proceed further into the store.
Takeaway liquor venues made a show of trying to limit sales on Thursday, banning the sale of bottles one litre or larger.
That simply prompted locals to buy two 700ml bottles instead of the single litre they had initially planned.
When The Weekend Australian visited a bakery on the town’s outskirts, almost every customer who entered had been affected in some way by the violence.
Owner Darren Clark has had his home, car and business broken into or damaged 36 times in the past 18 months. “We’re scared of the violence, we are scared to go to sleep overnight, to lay in our beds, we’re scared to go out to the CBD, to be in our cars,” he said.
“It’s only a matter of time before we have tragedies here and the repercussions of that, who knows what happens.”
Mr Clark said community issues were being brought into the town, with street fights occurring to settle disagreements from different regions.
“This is not a racial problem in this town, this is a behavioural problem,” he said. “It’s just a few that are making this bad, people coming in from the communities, they’re not coming in for the right reasons. They’re coming in to drink and drink excessively.”
Mr Clark said the violence had escalated since the Stronger Futures laws lapsed, making alcohol legal in many Aboriginal town camps for the first time in 15 years. “At the moment, I’ve never seen anything like it – it’s bad.”
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